Issues in Biotechnology
Study Guide for Quiz on Forensics
Forensics: Trace Evidence
DNA-based Forensics: The Real Story
The National Forensic Debate: Public Safety vs. The Right of Privacy
BCH 190
1. Who recognizes, identifies, individualizes and evaluates physical
evidence using the methods of natural sciences in matters of legal
significance?
(A) Detectives
(B) Criminologists
(C) Criminalists
(D) Criminals
(E) Local police
2. The CT CODIS Database collects two types of samples; (1) Convicted
Offender Samples that include all Felony Convictions (since 03/01/04)
and, (2) Forensic Unknowns that include any DNA profile from an
evidentiary sample that does not match the victim or an elimination
known. There are currently 10,793 offenders in CT Database and over
1500 offender samples are added per month. Currently there are how
many felons on the CT database?
(A) 1 out of 50 males in CT
(B) 1 out of 1000 males in CT
(C) 1 out of 10,000 males in CT
(D) None of these answers is correct
3. CODIS stands for:
(A) Combined DNA Index System
(B) Combinatorial Operations for DNA Identification Systems
(C) Criminalists for DNA Indexing Systems
(D) None of these answers are correct
4. PCR is used in plant genetics, animal cloning, drug discovery, cancer
research and forensics.
(A) False
(B) True
(C) only when a plant geneticist thinks his collaborator stole his work
(D) only when forensic analysis involves plant material from a crime scene
5. DNA analysis is now a common and widely accepted forensic tool
used to analyze evidentiary DNA.
A. True
B. False
C. Only in less than half the states
D. Only used on convicted felons
6. In the national debate about the use of forensic DNA analysis and the
building of DNA databases (such as an all felon database vs. an all
arrestee database of a general public database) there are two competing
views. One view holds that DNA testing and the building of databases is
a matter of public safety: DNA solves crimes; only criminals should fear
DNA testing or databases. The opposing view holds that
(A) There are privacy concerns, maintaining that DNA information is different
where there is significant potential for abuse.
(B) Misused DNA evidence has obviously exonerated guilty people citing the OJ
Simpson trial. No one is looking for the criminal of that crime.
(C) That the PCR approach to DNA testing is not accurate or reliable
(D) DNA databases will be far too costly to maintain or use.
7. Considering the National debate on DNA forensic databases which of
the following is not an issue?
(A) Constitutionality of taking DNA samples from arrestees and suspects.
(B) Practical/financial considerations of Expanding DNA Databanks.
(C) What happens to the sample after profiling?
(D) Post-conviction DNA testing. >150 Exonerated-August 2004
(E) Accuracy of the DNA testing protocols
8. (STR) technology is used to evaluate specific regions (loci) within
nuclear DNA. Variability in STR regions can be used to distinguish one
DNA profile from another. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
uses a standard set of 13 specific STR regions for CODIS. CODIS is a
software program that operates local, state, and national databases of
DNA profiles from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scene evidence,
and missing persons. The odds that two individuals will have the same
13-loci DNA profile is extremely unlikely. STR stands for:
(A) Standard Temperature Reactions
(B) Statewide Tracking Reliabilities
(C) Short Tandem Repeats
(D) Starwars Tracking Reactions
9. There was a homicide in 1994. A plastic bag was found in the shallow
grave of the victim with a bloody jacket and some trace hairs were
recovered. What techniques would be best used to match the hairs to
the suspect’s cat, snowball?
(A) PCR providing a perfect match with cat STRs
(B) all of these techniques together provide the best case
(C) PCR of the blood from the jacket to tie the DNA of the suspect to the jacket
(D) scanning electron microscopy of the trace evidence showed that they were
those of a cat
10. Research on how the principles of biology and evolution are involved
with criminal behavior is in its infancy. The principal mechanism of
evolution, which includes two processes that operate together: chance
variability and selection, is called:
(A) Natural Selection
(B) Ingenuity
(C) Conjugation
(D) Predation
(E) Intelligent design
11. DNA databases are controversial because
(A) Because of the conflict between public safety and civil liberties
(B) They have not proven useful to solving crimes
(C) They use crime genes to evaluate unsuspected criminals from the pubic
(D) They have been too expensive or computationally too difficult to manage on a
large scale
12. There was a double murder in Seattle in 1996 and preliminary
investigation came up with two suspects. A couple had been torture and
shot dead along with their pet dog. There was blood on one of the
suspect’s clothing. The blood on the clothing could be best matched
with that of the dog by doing what?
(A) looking for matching dogs hairs at the crime scene
(B) finding no dog blood on the second suspect
(C) using PCR on both samples with known molecular makers for dogs
(D) obtaining the records from the local veterinarian
13. What are the odds of two people’s DNA matching one another given
the nationally used 13 CODIS core of STR loci used by state and federal
forensics experts?
(A) Over 1 in a billion
(B) 1 in 3 million
(C) 1 in 700,000
(D) 1 in 7,000
E) less than 1 in 90
14. Which of these items could be a source for possible DNA forensic
testing:
(A) All of these items can be used for DNA testing
(B) cigarette butts
(C) general clothing: including gloves, bandanas, ski masks, baseball caps
(D) condoms (inside vs. outside)
(E) a bloody knife
15. How does forensic testing help in a criminal investigation?
(A) by linking a suspect to a victim
(B) by linking a victim to crime scene
(C) by linking a suspect to crime scene
(D) by any or all of the answers
16. Evolution:
(A) has been demonstrated at the molecular level in many organisms
(B) of a new species has not occurred in the last 100 years
(C) has been disproven by the believers of Intelligent Design
(D) despite that if all of the factual science in support of it were printed and
stacked that the documents would possibly fill a building the size of a Walmart,
there is no hard evidence that it even occurs
(E) has demonstrated to be thermodynamically impossible
17. Darwin conceived that new species developed as populations with
different forms and functions diverged and that evolution occurs:
(A) through natural selection in a population that includes variation
(B) through and inheritance of acquired traits that an organism willed into being
for its own purpose
(C) only in the animal kingdom
(D) only until the year 1A.D. at which point all organisms became genetically
18. The numbers of repeat offenses is one reason people support felon
DNA databases. Collecting samples from offenders convicted of all
felonies could help insure their DNA profiles are in the Database before
the commit their first violent act. There is a 67% recidivism rate among
convicted sex offenders and the average number of sexual assaults per
offender is 8-13. As it turns out felons are often opportunistic and
commit more than one type of crime. 52% of the offenders linked to
sexual assaults and homicides by DNA Database matches had a prior
conviction of what type of crime?
(A) Burglary
(B) Assault & Battery
(C) Kidnapping
(D) Sex offenses against children
(E) White collar crimes
19. Why would analyzing the DNA of burglars reduce the violent crime
rate, theoretically?
(A) DNA testing would prove that criminals are genetically predisposed to crime
(B) 50% of non-violent criminals go on to commit violent crimes, analysis would
make proving guilt and making arrests easier
(C) It wouldn’t
(D) No answer listed is correct
20. Why should we expand forensic DNA databases?
(A) More hits. Approximately half all violent criminals have non-violent prior
convictions. If only collect violent offenders, likelihood of hit (rape/homicide
case) is reduced by ~ 85%.
(B) Exclude more people who could not be the source of the DNA profile
(C)) Protect public safety
(D) all of these reasons
21. The world’s highest rape rate of all countries that publish such data
is:
(A) Japan
(B) Canada
(C) The United States
(D) England
(E) Italy
22. An American woman is _____ times more likely to be raped than to
die in a car crash
(A) two
(B) five
(C) ten
(D) the same
23. X % of rape victims are females under the age of 18
(A) 12%
(B) 28%
(C) 37%
(D) 61%
24. One out of every _____ women currently in college has been raped.
(A) 5
(B) 7
(C) 17
(D) 170
25. Approximately 28% of rape victims are raped by their husbands,
and
X
% by an acquaintance,
(A) 5
(B) 25
(C) 35
(D) 55
26.
X
% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by assailants well
known to the victim
(A) 21
(B) 31
(C) 51
(D) 71
27.
X
% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by assailants well
known to the victim
(A) 21
(B) 31
(C) 51
(D) 71
Take back the Night